


forward and back again

by afrocurl



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, Nuclear Winter, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their quest to find new mutants, Charles and Erik find themselves meeting a woman who sends them into the future.</p><p>Their discoveries are not what they planned, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forward and back again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my trope-bingo card, for the time travel square.
> 
> Betaed by the ever-lovely **ninemoons42**.

It took almost nothing for the woman--more girlish than not--to alter everything that Charles and Erik had known to this point.

They had been recruiting, looking for the minds that Charles had touched in Cerebro, in the hopes of bringing them into the fold with Raven and Hank back at the CIA. However, they had had no understanding of the mutations of everyone that Charles had touched until they met, face to face.

Sabrina had been scared by the two men who approached her in the small store she worked in. Scared so much that she lost control--sending the two of them into--

*

No longer were they in the store staring at Sabrina. Instead, they were surrounded by grey ominous clouds that swept over dilapidated buildings.

It looked like years of the land being beaten down by _something_ , though neither knew what could have done something.

“We should look around, look for clues,” Erik said as his eyes searched for signs of life, leaving his sense of magnetism for later, for when night fell and his eyes could no longer follow the bleak light of day.

Charles only nodded before they stepped forward from where they were brought. The vast grey sky met hard brown dirt at a harshly distant horizon. It felt like death had lashed this pace for ages, leaving it rotten and in decay.

In silence, they walked through buildings that had been nearly blown to pieces. There were small shrubs dotted between the remains of buildings, but otherwise, it was desolate.

A wasteland.

Erik shivered as they walked, struck by a strong gust of wind. “It isn’t safe here. We should look for shelter.”

“Shelter? Here?” Charles asked.

“Yes. Here. Whatever we can find. I think there’s something mostly whole up there,” Erik added before he pointed towards a dark mass with one lone tree standing next to it. “I can feel enough metal for there to be something that might still be standing.”

The walk to that point took longer than either man had expected, the grey clouds and dull landscape giving away no clues about the movement of the sun or the time of day. Neither of their watches seemed to be of use now.

As they approached the structure, it grew menacing, nearly black bricks against the grey sky. But, once they crossed through a door frame, the space transformed. Light filtered through the rooms, a low yellow washing over the walls.

“I wasn’t expecting this,” Charles said.

“This,” Erik pointed, “was not how I figured that trip to meet Sabrina would end.”

“I had no clue she was so scared. I didn’t know how little control she had, until we approached her. Trust me.”

“I do,” Erik said. “But, let’s figure out where--”

“More like when,” Charles interrupted, “we are. That might help more than anything.”

Erik crouched down to see if there were any signs of dates on stray pieces of newsprint, but found nothing. He pressed on, looking for anything that would give away their place in time.

As he led the way through the rooms, they each looked for a sign, though found none.

Until they reached the far corner, where the light revealed four bodies huddled together.

Whispers faintly tried to echo off the walls, but failed. Charles put his hand against Erik’s forearm, stopping him. They waited, hoping for a hint.

The voices rose, growing more confident as the shadows grew around them.

“We can’t make it much longer.”

“--agreed, but we don’t have the capacity to do anything.”

“---weren’t you something of a specialist all those years ago? What happened?”

“--nothing is the same after the fallout. You know that.”

As the voices rose higher and higher, Erik stepped closer, trying to hear more of their conversation. He stepped on a branch, loud enough to call attention to his presence.

The group turned towards Charles and Erik, eyes widening at the sight of two men in suits and fine leather shoes.

“Who are you?” one asked as she rose. Her features were hidden under a dark cloak, but she moved quickly to approach both of them.

“You’re--,” she started, before bringing a blue hand to her mouth. Quickly Charles and Erik shared a look before she wrapped them both into a tight embrace. She squeezed each of them as if her life depended on it, though that seemed hard to imagine for each of them as they took in more of the surroundings.

She pulled back after nearly a minute, before examining each of them under the light.

“We, we thought you disappeared,” she said. Her cloak fell away, revealing tufts of bright red hair and more blue skin.

“Raven?” Charles asked.

She nodded and started to walk back towards her group. Charles and Erik followed a few steps behind. Her hug seemed to be enough for the group and they all smiled, lines crinkling around their mouths.

“You know everyone here,” she said next, though she made no formal introductions. One of the other cloaked figures took its hood down, revealing another blue figure. This one was covered in fur.

“It’s Hank,” the man said. “Without you both around, the CIA convinced me to explore Raven’s genes. It didn’t end well.”

“What happened to you all?” Charles asked.

“Without you, Shaw was able to carry out his plan--destruction of humans through nuclear winter. This is what’s left. These are the aftereffects. We’re all that’s left of ‘humanity’. There are other smaller pockets, we think, but we have no confirmation.” Hank’s voice was lower than either Erik or Charles could remembered, but it was easy to realize that a complete physical transformation would result in the change in tenor.

“Angel left with Shaw when we figured it out,” Darwin added as he emerged from his cloak. “She didn’t like the CIA much, especially without anyone with clout to keep the agents away from her.”

Erik scowled at the mere idea of anyone taking advantage of Angel, after all that she had seen.

“We had this plan to keep her, but it didn’t work,” the last man said, his face still hidden. “It felt like one more failure without you,” he said before his voice rose a few octaves into a nearly familiar high-pitched wail.

Hank spoke again. “We have no idea of how to look for anyone left after all this time. But,” he paused, “maybe you can help. Can you feel anyone else within range?”

Charles balked at the idea of testing his ability _now_ , but felt that it was the least he could do for these people who had relied on him just moments, not years, before.

“There was nothing I picked up when he first arrived, but let me try again.” He sat down carefully on the floor, sitting cross-legged atop a small blanket. “I don’t know how far I can go, but I’ll try again.”

His finger came to his temple easily, and he closed his eyes, letting the feel of these five minds ground him into this place, into this time, before he tried to expand. It felt like nothing, as he searched, but he pressed on, trying to go behind the two-hundred mile range he had known before.

It was empty. There was no one there.

His finger came down just as quickly as it rose. “I found no one, but I can only look a few hundred miles. That doesn’t mean we can’t try later, after a few days’ walk to reach the edge.”

The others huddled together, thinking through Charles’ words before Raven spoke. “We’re too weak to travel, and there’s not enough food for either of you to have to walk such a distance. But thank you. Having you here, knowing that you both didn’t die--that’s enough.”

Charles and Erik shared a look. They knew it was not enough to arrive in a new age with new rules and not fight. They were meant to fight fifty years ago.

“We’ll go out a few miles, then,” Erik said. “Just to check if that makes a difference.”

It felt like Erik had let Shaw win, now that he could see that their joined efforts to create a force to battle the man who had destroyed Erik's memories had been all for naught.

Charles caught the end of Erik’s thought, but said nothing before nodding slowly. “We’ll leave tomorrow,” he said.

In the huddle of friends, Charles and Erik dropped into fitful sleep, images of what had befallen their friends floating in and out of their consciousness.

When they woke later, it was easier to say goodbye, knowing that if they succeeding in reaching a bit farther west that they might find someone. And it would be enough to bring Darwin, Hank, Raven and Sean some kind of peace.

Like the day before, the walk felt endless, the terrain harsh and unforgiving under their feet. They wished for clothes other than tailors suits and shoes meant for standing, not climbing.

In hours, they reached their destination, and the sky loomed over them as it had when they arrived.

Charles pressed his mind out, looking to Erik as an anchor and felt a few minds just at the edge--

*

The bright light of the store caused the two of them to stumble, unaccustomed to the harsh fluorescent bulbs.

Sabrina stared at them, still as shocked as before before she gasped and ran away.

They were back in their time. With so much at stake, if what they had learned before was true.

Charles asked another shopgirl to leave a note for Sabrina, thanking her for the time and for the chance to see her gift in action.

He swore that no one else would know of her gift before he promised to keep all of their kind safe.

There was work to be done to prevent everything they had seen from happening.


End file.
